Phantasm of the Dance Hall
by PineappleGrenade
Summary: Loosely based on the Phantom of the Opera. Howard and Vince set up a private detective agency only to run into a new foe with an old face.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer-y stuff here as is the custom. The Mighty Boosh are not collectively mine, neither is the plot of Phantom of the Opera. I hope you enjoy it anyway! ;)**

Vince Noir had always wanted to be a private detective. Who didn't want to be one? Those little trilby hats cocked rakishly to one side and dramatically flowing trench coats were genius. And there was nothing cooler than wandering about the streets all day pointing a magnifying glass at things or racing around sharp corners in a fast car, the windows open so it would blow one's hair about all over the place like in those films about driving around in cars with the windows open.

It was a dull, grey Sunday, Topshop was closed and there was nothing to do – it was the perfect day to start Vince Noir's Private Detective Agency. He had spent all morning straightening his hair and a little bit of the afternoon creatively splashing various colours of paint onto big pieces of cardboard.

"Hey there, woah, what are you doing, little man?" A voice came suddenly from the doorway of the living room that resided above the Nabootique. The voice sounded shocked in a way that bordered on irritation.

Vince, absorbed in his artistic genius, didn't bother looking up as he added a dash more neon yellow paint. It splattered covertly onto a nearby sofa. "Alright, Howard."

"Watch out for the carpet…" Howard's face involuntarily contracted into a pained expression as he thought about the notorious difficulty of removing paint stains.

The small tip of a pink tongue was caught between the budding private detective's teeth as he considered where to drop the next painty bombshell. He hadn't heard a word his highly-strung Northern friend had said. "How do you spell 'detective'?" He ventured forth at last, spotting a few blobs of neon green about his cardboard sign to create a rather interesting effect.

"D, E, T… Why?"

"We're starting a private detective agency, I told you already." The electrogoth huffed, squatted down on his haunches with a paintbrush poised ready to continue writing. He peered up at the other man through his stylish fringe to make sure his eye-rolling could be seen. "What's after the 'e'?"

But now Howard was caught up in the dream. He stared thoughtfully at a blank wall, softly repeating "Private detective agency…" Howard Moon, DCI, it did have a certain ring to it. Yes sir, those people who did bad things in the evening times had better watch out when Howard Moon was about. He pulled a few shapes from the air, menacing shapes, strong shapes, shapes to inspire fear into the criminal mind.

"What are you doing?"

"Pulling law-enforcing shapes, sir."

"You look ridiculous." Turning his attention from the sight that was cross between seeing your dad dancing at a wedding like it was 1981 and a warthog in its final death throes, Vince looked back down at his poster advertising his agency. He smiled gently to himself, it was almost finished. Just a final flourish… just there… genius. Now to put it up in the window of the Nabootique where passers by in need of detective help would see it. He was stopped on his way to the door.

"What's that?"

The conversation was starting to get repetitive. The electro-detective sighed. "It's our poster, for the agency. You know, to advertise it."

"But it looks like a glow-stick got dizzy and threw up."

"I know, cool isn't it?" Vince held the large piece of cardboard up beside his face and grinned at his own genius. "I'm going to put it up in the window."

"You're not putting it anywhere, sir."

Seeing the look on his friend's face, the detective-to-be decided prudence was a virtue. Clutching his precious sign like it was a sale item in a crowded Topshop, he turned tail and fled for the door with the other man in close pursuit.

* * *

On that particular Sunday the Velvet Onion was empty. The air was still and waiting; impatient to be filled with people and noise again, but with the club closed it still had a few hours of solitude left.

In his one-roomed office the owner, Bob Fossil, was taking a well earned nap at his desk. It was well earned because he had spent the whole day avoiding doing any work of importance whatsoever and it had used up lot of energy. Feet propped up on the desk and his head thrown back he was completely at ease, a long snore escaping his open mouth alongside a renegade line of sleep-drool. But he wasn't at ease enough not to be disturbed by a sudden crash coming from the main hall.

He was on his feet in seconds, shouting a string of unintelligible nonsense as he dropped into a defensive crouch, executing a few high kicks as he moved along the length of the office in crab-like fashion.

"Who's out there? Because I'm not in here, I'm out to lunch with hexagonal eyelash man!" He shouted at the door before delivering a particularly painful karate chop to the wood. Hopping back in pain and cradling the injured appendage beneath his armpit, he gave another shout of "Oww… Stay back, or I'll hurt you, I'll hurt you like a little puppy."

Silence. Except for the ringing in his ears that was the after-effect of making such an amount of noise in a small room. Content that he had scared whoever or whatever had made that crashing sound away, he returned to his desk and thought about getting some more sleep. That is, until another crash, followed by something that sounded like a sonic boom made him jump so much he fell from his chair to the floor.

"Hello?" Grabbing the edge of the desk, he peered over the top of it, aiming to keep as much of himself hidden as possible. His eyes darted nervously from side to side, taking in the emptiness of the room but finding no comfort in it. "Mommy?" He really hoped it wasn't her; he made a loud machine gun noise just in case. Still nothing. Being the second man that afternoon to decide on the benefits of discretion, he plucked the telephone from its resting place on the desk and disappeared beneath the wooden structure with it to make a call.

* * *

Vince had outrun his opponent even in ridiculously high platform boots. The neon-painted sign proclaiming Vince Noir's (and Howard Moon's) Private Detective Agency open for business was propped ostentatiously in the display window of the Nabootique. Of course, this was much to the jazz-man's annoyance. He was just striding over to the window to remove the monstrosity and replace it with a more sedate advertisement of his own when…

"_Brring, Brring, Brring…"_

Both men froze as the same thought entered both their heads. They stared across the room at each other, disbelief and wonder showing in their eyes with equal measure. Surely not… each man made a desperate lunge for the phone. Being closest, Vince snatched up the receiver and cradled it to his ear.

"Alright, Vince's private detective agency, if you've got a crime we've got the time." Immensely pleased with this sudden inspiration of wit he spent the entire opening of the phone call grinning smugly at Howard in order to get the other man to acknowledge his superior genius. As a result he missed everything that was said. Besides, the caller was whispering, which made things very difficult to understand. He asked if all that could be repeated, please. The whispered speech was run hastily through again. Vince's eyes lit up.

Placing one hand over the mouthpiece, he waved the other frantically to attract attention. Once it was achieved he pointed at the telephone and mouthed 'it's someone needing a detective!'

Howard gave a start, shaking his head in disbelief. 'But we've only just put up the sign, that's impossible!' was mouthed back with gusto.

A grin split the electro-detective's face. 'I know!' Suddenly realising that he still had the caller on the other end, his face snapped back to one of professional attention and he removed his hand from the mouthpiece, stating in reliably serious tones "Yes, I understand. At what time? Alright we'll meet you there. Bye."

"Who was that?" Howard asked as he hurried over, all thoughts of replacing the poster banished from his head by the more exciting thought of fighting crime and finding clues.

The other man, replacing the phone in its cradle, shrugged. "I don't know, he was whispering so I couldn't hear." His face lit up. "It sounded dangerous though, we'd better go get changed into some detective clothes." At the prospect of raiding his extensive wardrobe for a suitable outfit he turned quickly for the stairs, luckily missing Howard's face twisting itself in anguishes of irritation. How were they meant to investigate something when they didn't even know where it had taken place?

His angry question was cut off by Vince suddenly turning back around, his face showing an anguish to rival the other man's. "My hat! I left my trilby hat at the Velvet Onion last night," he wailed. "We have to go and get it, I can't detective without it. Look at my hair, this isn't detective hair, this is pop star hair."

Howard was inclined to agree with that latter statement. Besides, he could tell he wasn't going to have any say in the whole matter. At least getting out of the Nabootique was a step towards solving whatever crime had been perpetrated. So he kindly agreed to go along to the Velvet Onion, as long as he could change into a sedate muffin all-purpose action man detective coat first.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hello? Is anyone in there? Mr. Fossil sir?" Howard peered around the open door of the Velvet Onion, staring into its dark and silent depths. The place gave him the distinct feeling of 'the creeps' so he quickly drew back and looked to Vince, who was hovering impatiently at his side. "It's empty."

"It can't be empty! Where's Fossil?" Intent on getting his hat back, the electro-detective pushed past his friend and disappeared into the ominously silent club, scanning the dance floor and stage in a futile search. Howard hesitated a moment, his face screwed up with indecision before following. He took the reasoning that with two people looking for the renegade accessory they'd be able to get away and solving crimes quicker.

They were just crossing to one of the far corners to search there when something came running out of the darkness that led in the direction of Bob Fossil's office, waving what looked like a particularly nasty weapon and screaming like a banshee going into battle.

Both detectives displayed great courage in the face of danger, both leaping off to one side, the moustachioed one with a whimpered cry of "Don't kill me, I've got so much to give!" Upon reaching them, their unknown attacker skidded uncertainly to a halt and glanced from side to side, the weapon, which turned out to be a prosthetic leg, being slowly lowered.

"Howard?"

"Wh-what?"

"Fossil?"

The loud American turned, his eyes peering through the gloom. "Vincey princey?"

Vince's eyes sought the ceiling in a small gesture of irritation. "Yeah. Have you seen a red trilby hat lying around? I need it."

"I'm so glad you're here, Vincey…"

"Red? You never said it was a _red_ trilby! You can't detective in a red trilby hat, you need a strong shade of beige for that, observe what I have on."

"A tent?"

Howard thought of grabbing for the prosthetic leg and thumping his so-called friend over the head with it, but then he closed his eyes and thought of kittens. The kittens calmed him down considerably and no one was hurt.

"I'm going to have to close the Velvet Onion."

The statement broke slowly into the consciousness of the two arguing detectives, surfacing like a bad curry from last night's drunken take out, like they say, you can't keep a bad curry down. They both turned to look at Bob, wondering if they had quite heard correctly.

"Close it down? You can't do that my hat is in here somewhere!"

"Forget the hat, Vince, it's gone."

"Shut up!" Fossil swung the leg he was still holding outwards and trained it alternatively on Howard and Vince, reminiscent of a desperate criminal holding up a bank. "Don't make me pull the angry-bunny face!" His upper lip drew back in preparation for such an endeavour, his nose scrunching up, but he was hurriedly stopped by Vince.

Once they had the American calmed down Howard ventured down a more sensible line of conversation. "Why are you closing the club?"

Fossil winced and nervously eyed the other two men, his eyeballs darting from side to side in his sockets like they were looking for a way out. Slowly, he leant in towards them, lowering the volume of his voice to a rare whisper. "It's haunted."

"Haunted?"

"Haunted!" The man exploded in the ears he had leant in so close to. Vince hopped back, clutching at his abused ear whilst Howard staggered drunkenly, his eardrums feeling decidedly threatened. In a slightly quieter tone Fossil added "And I've lost the headline act for tonight."

Vince's already considerably pale skin turned the unhealthy colour of vanilla yoghurt that had never seen the light of day. In his mind he was standing back outside the Velvet Onion, idly looking at the poster stuck up advertising the main act for the night. He hadn't really registered it at the time, because he had been so busy talking to Howard, but now it sat in the forefront of his mind, flashing as brightly as a light show at a synthpop concert. The poster had announced Gary Numan to be the Velvet Onion's headlining act that night. He swayed, feeling faint all of a sudden. He was barely able to croak out the words "You've _lost_ Gary Numan? Genius pop star _and _pilot?"

His concern was met with a blank look. "I haven't lost anyone; don't tell anyone, I'll be ruined! You won't tell will you, Vincey, my lovely Vincey?"

A few awkward moments of silence ensued before Fossil took up the initiative once again, his round face becoming suddenly sly and calculating. "Hey, you two are like detectives now aren't you? Like Detective Big-leg, he has a big leg that he can solve crimes with." He hummed a snatch of the theme tune in case they needed reminding then launched into a manic pseudo-karate routine that ended in a wood-splitting chop and an exclamation of "I hate whites!"

Howard and Vince exchanged glances.

Fossil switched back to a wheedling tone, reaching out to pet the electro-detective's shoulder in a way that could quite possibly get him arrested in other countries. "White sheet tutu man took the band away; you could go and get them back. With your detective skills and normal sized legs. I'd give you a plum tree with a little partridge in it."

Of course Vince would go looking for the missing Gary Numan, trilby hat or not trilby hat. "Okay. Where did you lose him?"

"I'm not going down there!" The owner of the Velvet Onion exploded, brandishing the extra synthetic limb once again. "I'm not going down in the sewers! He took them down there!"

"_Sewers_?"

"Them?"

Fossil glanced between his two questioners with a slack look, trying to separate the two words that had been expelled at the same time. "Yeah, there are sewers beneath the club. Didn't you _know_ that?" He answered finally in the kind of tone that implied Howard really should have known that. With that word dealt with he turned to Vince. "Yeah, them, Kraftwerk Orange, the ones who're meant to be playing tonight. Are you an _idiot_?" He scowled at the calibre of the people he had to work with.

"I thought Gary Numan was meant to be playing?"

The question was met with an indifferent shrug. "He cancelled. Now are you going to help me or not?"

Vince nodded slowly, then with more conviction. Yes, they would help; after all, helping was what being a detective was all about. Their first case, how genius!

"The bang-y ghost has been taking all my headline acts away," Fossil was explaining as he took off into the dark, down a hallway that Vince had never noticed before. But then, that was always the way of things too, he'd watched enough Midsomer Murders in the afternoon to know that at least. "And sometimes he leaves little notes saying that if I don't leave him five hundred Euros he'll tear down the club."

"He sounds like bad news, sir."

This rather obvious understatement was ignored. Fossil reached the end of the corridor they had been traversing down, a corridor that oddly got smaller and smaller as it went further in, much in the style of that corridor in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film. Vince had watched that one, he thought it was rather genius, especially the bit where-

"I won't be seeing you again."

"What?!"

"Have a good trip; I'll have some cheese waiting for you when you get back." Fossil muttered once again but this time without conviction, swinging open the trap door set in the floor that led to the sewers lurking beneath the Velvet Onion. Howard and Vince exchanged nervous looks upon seeing that huge, yawning, pitch-black chasm beneath them; but before they could have a change of heart they were pushed down. Everything went black as the trap door banged closed.


	3. Chapter 3

With the sense of sight deprived by complete and utter darkness, the other senses become more highly tuned to make up for it. So it was that the first thing Howard and Vince - private detectives – noticed, when they had finally managed to stagger to their feet and had checked for any bones broken by their fall, was the smell. The smell was terrible, it was beyond even the realms of surreal comedy – the sewers stank of an unholy mixture of fish, damp electrical wiring, forgotten alcoholic drinks and an elusive ingredient that defied classification.

Faced with such horror, Vince groaned involuntarily and wished he had thought to wear a bandana that day, even if it would have clashed with his trench coat. Instead he just buried his nose in his hands and complained bitterly at Howard through them.

Over the sound of this muffled ranting, it was possible with ears suddenly forced to step up their game to replace the loss of sight, to pick out a multitude of other sounds. A constant night time tap drip-drip of water from somewhere down an echoing pipe, unsettling rustlings even further off, and even further away from all that was the very faint sound of someone who is tone deaf playing an electric keyboard. All in all, the sewers were not a pleasant place to be.

Howard Moon, DCI, M.O.A., Etc., finally decided to make a move. He felt warily out into the darkness and managed to catch hold of his fellow detective's sleeve. "Come on," he whispered hoarsely, "we'd better start looking for clues."

"Okay Scooby Doo," Vince muttered sulkily. He lifted up one foot and peered gloomily down at the place where he supposed it would be, were he able to see it. "These boots cost me a fortune." The comment was not met with sympathy, he merely found himself being dragged down the dark sewer pipe, another set of splashing footsteps matching his own.

"How are we supposed to find them if we can't even see where we're going?" He asked before promptly walking into something. Startled and a little stunned, he reeled back, the other man's grip on his sleeve slipping away. "Howard! There's a light switch there!" He exclaimed, starting forwards again and rubbing his nose where the hard plastic ridge of a light switch had struck him.

"Don't be stupid, you don't get light switches in…"

A low hum of firing up electricity contradicted Howard's statement. At the single flick of a switch the sewers were suddenly filled with light, and not just any light, the ceiling and walls were studded generously with disco light panels, giving the whole place a rather colourful feel. Howard blinked like a blinded owl as the sudden rush of primary colours assaulted his vision. As if to add insult to the injury, little disco balls swung down from the ceiling in unison, catching the bright lights and reflecting them in maddening infinity.

"Cool," Vince grinned appreciatively.

"But this doesn't make sense," the jazz genius interjected, his eyes squeezed shut to block out the gaudy lighting. "Why would anyone have a disco in a sewer?"

Vince shrugged. "Underground culture?" Content with being able to see again he splashed off down the length of the pipe, keeping an eye out for any tunnels branching off into unexplored climes. Apart from the faraway sound of keyboard music growing steadily more distant as he waded away from it, the place seemed devoid of life.

A little further on he'd come across a squat pink mini-fridge and was trying to wrestle it open, when a cry of fear rang out through the sewers, rebounding off the damp walls and echoing back until it became a fearful sound. Selflessly, he abandoned the possible clue and soft drinks holder, racing back to the source of the scream.

What he came across was rather unexpected. Howard, his eyes still squeezed shut to keep out the glare of the disco lights, was floundering haphazardly around a small expanse of the sewer pipe, continually bumping into two smaller figures that seemed to be having balance troubles of their own. "Help! The ghost's got me!" The moustachioed man whimpered as he ricocheted once again off one of the other figures. "Vince, help! I'm surrounded!"

Vince, having come close enough to work out what was going on, sighed softly in exasperation. "Open your eyes, Howard."

"What?" The small eyes cautiously cranked open. First they rested on Vince, taking comfort in the presence of another corporeal being, and then they sought out the malignant spirits. There was nothing to be seen except for two very drunk women. "Where's the ghost?"

"There isn't one, you jazz freak." The electro-detective waded closer, taking the closer of the two girls by the arm and turning her to face him. He found himself looking into a familiar pretty face framed with wildly crimped, stylishly bottle-blonde hair. "Ultra! Hey Howard, it's Kraftwerk Orange, we've found them."

Ultra looked at the man holding her arm without recognition, swaying uncertainly on her feet. The immediate air around her mouth smelt like a Baileys orgy left to get seriously out of hand.

"She's been drunked!"

"You mean drugged?" Howard offered helpfully, but received an impatient head shake in reply.

"No, _drunked_. Someone's force fed them a dangerous amount of Baileys."

"But who could have done such a thing?" DCI Moon surveyed the two band members, both hiccoughing groggily and staggering about in a creamy liquor induced haze, unaware of their surroundings.

"Who did this to you?" Vince helpfully asked the other woman – Neon.

For a moment she looked as if she would answer. Her eyes grew wide in sudden memory and her mouth opened, ready to solve the mystery. Then she hiccoughed violently, giggled, and put a hand over her mouth. "I think I'm going to be sick."

The two newly-detectives watched as Neon toppled unceremoniously into unconsciousness, splashing prone into the sewer water. They exchanged looks. Crime fighting wasn't all it was cracked up to be, it seemed.

"Come on, we'd better get them back to Fossil."


End file.
